Sour
by glasshibou
Summary: He'd haunted her. In school, at home, at the park; she did not have a moment's peace. But maybe she haunted him too... A story told in connected drabbles.
1. I

She knows that wishes are _bad._

A trip through a giant maze and a poisoned peach taught her that, so why is it that she still makes them?

Sarah begins to think that she will never, never learn.

_I wish the Goblin King would go away—forever—right now!_

Of course she never meant it, but because what is said is said and she still apparently had her _certain powers_, he disappeared. Forever.

It hasn't been forever, in fact it's barely been an hour, but so far it has been a completely goblin-free hour and that it what unnerves her. They were eternally underfoot, so much that it was almost impossible to get anything under control…

But she didn't mind the goblins. For the most part they were harmless, and they stayed away from Toby—it was their King that did not.

It was just that he scared her, she tried to rationalize. He stood over Toby's crib but was not looking in, as if he had been waiting for somebody… And that had been the final straw. Fear choked her, but not long enough to keep her from yelling the wish.

He'd haunted her. In school, at home, at the park; she did not have a moment's peace.

_But he never… he never…_

She screams now, howling in rage and distress and probably pain, because _it's not fair it's not fair it's not fair!_

_I think I liked him!_

He was constant, at any rate. Her father was a ghost in her life, flitting in and out of the house for work or dates with Karen or something else that she probably never bothered to remember; and if her father was a ghost, her own mother was dead and buried.

Karen was a constant too, of course, but not a comforting constant. Truth be told, they fought like dogs; one too old to be undermined by an insecure teenager and one too young to realize that just the slightest bit of respect would heal the insecure woman's feelings. Their conversations escalated into screams and shrieks and slamming doors and, on an occasion or two, tears.

Which _he_ was usually there to witness, if not dry.

He was never supposed to grant that wish—never supposed to leave her _alone_, damnit, but he did. He is gone.

And there isn't so much as a feather left behind on her windowsill.

* * *

><p><strong>AN**

Also, a disclaimer. I do not own Labyrinth, and I never will.


	2. II

The second wish—after her first one _after_ the labyrinth, of course—did not work. Neither did the third. Or the fourth.

In fact, _none_ of them work.

_I wish I could speak to a goblin._

_I wish I could speak to a Goblin King_.

She even wastes her seventeenth birthday wish in front of her mirror, begging to speak to Hoggle or Didymus, or even Ludo, anybody from the Underground so that she wouldn't feel quite so alone.

But she was alone; her father was busy pursuing a promotion at work and so was often away, her stepmother was often busy carting Toby to baseball practice or karate or math tutoring, something that ate up their time and kept them away from the fading teenage girl.

She tries to get absorbed in new books but finds that her eyes slide off the page and skip away from the words.

A full year after the labyrinth (that's how she thinks now—_before_ _the labyrinth_ and _after the labyrinth_) she realizes that she is probably going a little crazy.

No crazy in the certifiable sense, of course, but Sarah can feel that she is not the same as she was _before_ the labyrinth. She's a lot more cynical, to begin with. Perhaps a bit bitterer and harder with people, a little more unforgiving of dreams.

It's best to have grounded, reliable, _average_ dreams, she tells herself, and switches out of her creative writing and theatre classes to take more grounded, reliable, hopelessly _average_ classes like Algebra III and Biology II. They will look good for college, but she isn't thinking about college, not yet.

Sarah still makes wishes on the sly—a fallen eyelash or a shooting star prompt the words, but she tells herself that it is simply out of habit and not because she's really wishing—hoping—that they'll work this time.

While her friends apply to colleges, Sarah still makes wish upon wish upon wish, but to no avail.

She is still stuck in her almost cramped room, in the house that has the park down the street and an owl that will occasionally appear on a lonely stone obelisk to watch for a girl in a homemade princess costume.

* * *

><p><strong>AN**

Thanks to a comment from **MidnightCat99**, I will be continuing this, but I guess it's going to be more of a collection of related drabbles (or is it vignette?) than a real chaptered story. I'll try to keep each chapter at less than 400 words. _Try_ is very much the key word.


	3. III

Sarah breathes out and flips the flag on her mailbox down. The letter is in the mail, as she had expected it would be but…

Even as a little kid, she'd never imagined herself going to a community college—not that there was anything wrong with them—but she had always imagined going to a more… prestigious school. Part of that was prompted from her parents, of course, but she had _always_ wanted to get a degree in something, almost anything, to have some fancy name embossed on thick paper to hang in an office.

Well, _wanted_. Sarah found that she doesn't much care anymore. She holds the envelope in her hands and without opening it she knows that she has been accepted.

Instead she bends it almost in half while she contemplates if people go to college in the Goblin City or not.

Sarah supposes that they don't—the goblins hadn't seemed too bright and Ja… The King probably had his own tutors as a child.

"Is something wrong, Sarah?" Karen asks, rolling down her car window as she pulls into the driveway.

"No." She shakes her head and slides the envelope up her sleeve where the corners scratch her skin. "I was just going inside."

Karen nods and slides into the garage, leaving Sarah alone with her musings again.

"Come on, Merlin." She mutters to the old dog when she decides that she is finally ready to go back inside. Goblins probably don't even go to primary school, let alone college…

Dinner is leftover lasagna and dessert is peach pie, which she finds herself almost unable to eat without hoping that she'll somehow wind up in a shimmering white dress.

Sarah does not show the letter to her parents. Her father came home too late for dinner anyway, and Karen was busy watching Toby practice his karate moves.

Sarah trudges her way up to her room, locks the door behind her, and slumpes down on her bed.

Staring up at her ceiling, Sarah makes what she swears to herself will be her last wish, _ever_—

"I wish I could change the past."


	4. IV

When she wakes she cannot breathe. Little needlepoint lights prick at the edge of her vision, but she can feel that her eyes are closed.

When she opens her eyes the world is darkening quickly, and on the edge of the horizon the sun is setting into liquid gold, peeking between the branches of tall trees.

Sarah realizes that she is lying on her back in a forest somewhere, and it's almost funny because she doesn't even remember falling asleep. Except that it's _not_ funny because somewhere close by she can hear animal howls and the screams of a small child.

Her heart races in her chest and she sprints to where she thinks she hears the unearthly shrieks, and she stops short when she sees feral-looking fiery bird things, but she does not stop because they are tugging at the little boy's hair and pulling violently at his skin, she stops because she knows them.

Or at least recognizes their kind. They once stopped her in a forest too.

Licking her lips and trying to quell the anxiety that rises like a tidal wave somewhere below her heart, she picks up a twisted and gnarled stick. It would have been a nice walking stick, but Sarah has something a little more striking in mind.

Sarah flings herself into the small clearing before she can change her mind and lands a solid strike on the one creature's head. It goes flying off into the distance, and she repeats the process with the remaining tormenters.

As they scramble for their heads, Sarah stops them and tugs off their arms, pitching them as far as her adrenaline-enhanced strength will let her.

She does not stop to talk to the child; instead she picks him up and flees, pressing his bleeding forehead to her shoulder.

When she is winded and he has stopped crying she sets him down and looks him over. His left eye is swollen and bleeding a little, but other than that he is mostly just bruised. He stares at her and from under the swollen left eyelid she can see that his pupil looks strange. His hair is blonde and even cut short the way it is, it sticks up at odd angles.

There is, she thinks to herself, definitely something strange about this boy…

"What's your name?"

"Jareth."

Her blood runs cold.

* * *

><p><strong>AN**


	5. V

For two days straight she did not sleep, so her lapse of thought while pouring detergent into the washing machine was forgivable. When the sudsy water overflowed out of the front of the machine, it was not a big deal because nobody was home to know.

That was why she had decided to wash her bloody shirt, actually. Nobody got massive nosebleeds that landed on their _shoulder_, and Sarah really was not up for explaining why her shirt was also covered in dirt and grass stains.

Forest stains. Sarah shakes her head and swipes the towel over the damp floor again. Merlin ambles into the room and licks at the few bubbles that remain between the crack of the machine and the floor.

She shoos him away and sits down, crossing her legs, to watch the machine rattle slightly as it finishes its job.

Jareth—_that rat that calls himself Jareth_, floats through her mind, unbidden—had not recognized her, but that was hardly a surprise. She was older and he was… well, _young_. A child.

Jareth as a child. She almost smiles, but instead she leans back against the wall and stares at the corner of the ceiling. He had a strangely open look about him, like he was more curious about the situation than scared. _Sarah_ had certainly been scared; her heart had not stopped pounding until well after he had fallen asleep.

Sarah shakes a little even now when she thinks of the detaching body parts.

It almost makes her glad for her humdrum college life.

Almost.

She still kind of wants to go back because even after two days her desire for the magical had not deadened. Instead, her brief brush with the labyrinth again only made her crave it more.

Sarah runs up to her room, tired of sitting still but when she gets there, standing in the doorway, she does not know what to do.

Clean it? It's already clean. Organize something? There's nothing to organize.

Instead she crawls into her closet and pulls out a box from the very, very back. In it is a doll dressed in gray and dark blue with wild silver hair. Beside that is a princess in a glittering white dress that could be set to spin on top of a music box. The next things she pulls out are a little fox dressed as a knight and a hedge maze game and fluffy orange bird creature that she stares at for a second before she throws away.

At the very bottom is a book bound in red leather. It has no author listed, something that she had failed to notice before.


	6. VI

Toby sits almost underneath the chair that Sarah is trying desperately not to wriggle in. It's wooden, with a straight, tall back that does not let her slouch even the slightest bit.

"Tobes, are you almost done?" She asks using the nickname he doesn't really like.

"No. I've got to add glitter."

"Glitter?"

Sarah suppresses a sigh and thinks of the paper she still has to write waiting for her upstairs.

He crawls out from underneath the chair and presents her with a paper crown, beaming up at her surprised face.

"What's this?"

"A crown, silly."

"A crown? Am I a princess?"

Toby shakes his head and standing on his tiptoes, drops the paper crown on her head.

"You're a queen." Toby tells her.

"Not a princess?" Sarah arches her eyebrows and smiles at her younger sibling. "I'm not married to a king, you know."

But Toby shakes his head at her again and sticks out his tongue.

"I know. But you're a queen." He says simply.

"And then what are you?"

"A prince. That's why _you_ can't be a princess."


	7. VII

She is sitting in class listening to the wind howl and the trees beat against the windows when it happens.

The lecture is boring, almost insufferably so, and she might have briefly considered making a wish, but Sarah cannot remember the actual act.

But then suddenly, she is not sitting in class. Sarah is sitting on a carved wooden bench that has to be in a garden, because the overwhelming smell of crushed rosemary greets her nose from at her feet.

She is, of course, bewildered. The last time she was…_ here_, wherever here was at the moment, she had saved a very young Jareth. What could possibly be dangerous to somebody in a garden?

But that is not a question that will be answered, she thinks, because there is nobody there. She can hear the sound of the wind in the trees and the steady hum of crickets, but nothing else.

The sun is hot on her back—not like at home where the day could be described as overcast at best, and at worst something akin to a tornado—and she moves to take off her jacket. As she reaches around to ease the jacket off of her back, she catches sight of a mass of blonde hair.

"Jareth?" She calls out, standing swiftly. He approaches and for a second she wonders if she's made a mistake. He does not look the same as the first time she saw him—too young for that—and he doesn't look like the last time she saw him—too old for that—but his hair is almost the same time and his eyes are still mismatched.

"Sarah? What are you doing here?" He takes her jacket from her hands.

"I don't know." She cocks her head and stares at him. "You…"

She is cut off by the sudden embrace he traps her in.

"I've missed you." He whispers to her.

"I've… missed you too." She says, after a brief pause.

He tucks a sprig of rosemary behind her ear.

* * *

><p><strong>AN**

There's rosemary, that's for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember.  
><em>Hamlet<em>


	8. VIII

Karen's face is white and it looks like she's been sweating when Sarah pulls into the driveway.

"Oh thank God you're safe. They said—at the college—in your _seat_—they're calling it a _tornado_—where _were_ you?"

Sarah gapes at Karen for a second before returning her rib-crushing hug.

"What are they calling a tornado?"

Karen wipes her eye and flaps her other hand in an almost dismissive manner. "The winds, they sent half a _tree_ through the window at your lecture hall—Sarah, how do you not know what happened?"

"I… I went for a walk," She says, but really she's busy thinking about the garden and Jareth, and how she had not made a wish to get there. She'd just appeared, and now she thinks that maybe it wasn't her wish that had brought her there that one time anyway. Maybe it _was_ Jareth, maybe he had found a loophole…

Her heart soars because _now_ she thinks that maybe her previous wish, the one that wished him away could be revoked, even though she had tried so many different times to do it herself. _Maybe_ he feels something for her like she does for him, but then she almost kicks herself.

Sure, he felt something. He'd hugged her and whispered into her hair and given her flowers. But…

When she ran the labyrinth he'd thrown snakes at her, let her fall into an oubliette, and then sent the cleaners after her. Sarah doubts that she would have done that if she were in his position, not if she _loved_ somebody—or heck, even liked them just a little bit.

But she's pretty sure that she loves him.


	9. IX

He's back to being a child.

Sarah knows that she made the wish in her sleep because she was dreaming about him all night long.

But when she wakes up in a quiet alcove in the castle to see him as perhaps eight staring back at her, her heart almost breaks. She'd wanted him grown up—or at least able to answer the questions she had, but that was doubtful now in his current state.

Which was _young_.

Not that she was _old_, at twenty, but…

Sarah almost cries. He wouldn't know what she was talking about anyway, because their meeting in the garden happened in _his_ future.

From somewhere behind her, arguing erupts.

"There's a war." He tells her with grave eyes. She notes that his pupil is still swollen and knows that it will not shrink.

"Is there?" She asks quietly. "Are you all…" She licks her lips, suddenly nervous. "Are you all safe?"

Jareth shakes his head. "They think I don't know, but…"

Sarah nods, pretending that she understands, and then she rubs her eyes and glances out the window.

The labyrinth is not there. Inspiration strikes Sarah.

"Could you please take me to your parents?" When she asks the question he looks uncertain and nervous.

"Maybe you could introduce me as Sarah, the girl that saved you from those… things in the forest." His face brightens and he nods, grabbing her hand to lead her to where the shouting is coming from.

When Sarah enters the large, echoing chamber with Jareth leading her, the heated discussion stops short. Three people—who Sarah assumes are Jareth's mother, father, and perhaps an advisor—turn to stare.

"Jareth," his mother starts, "what are you doing here? Who is this… girl?" Her tone does not seem welcoming.

"She's Sarah. She saved me from the fireys."

The room is silent.

"Jareth. Um. His Highness… He told me… Well, that is, he said that you were in the middle of a war and he got the impression that it wasn't, ah, going so well. I thought that I had an idea that might, you know, help you." Her confidence peters out so that by the end of her explanation she is all but whispering.

All three regal figures pin her with their eyes until Sarah is sure that she has done something very, very wrong.

"And what is this idea?"

"Have you considered a labyrinth?"

* * *

><p><strong>AN**

I don't know if anybody else reads these notes-I usually do-but on the off chance somebody is and they happen to be waiting for me to update, I have an apology to make. On April 25th, 2011, I have to go in to the hospital to get a few tests run, but because of the nature of them they might cause a bit of a delay in the updates, which I am sorry for.

I don't even know if there _will_ be a delay at all, I just want to make sure that I don't leave anybody hanging.


	10. X

_This feels like a dream._

Sarah almost says the words aloud, but stops herself when she feels them on her lips.

"You're a rather repugnant little goblin, aren't you?" The voice sounds almost—_almost_—hauntingly familiar, but there's just something a little off about it, as if…

Jareth looks to be about fourteen, which would explain the voice, caught between being a child and an adult.

Even as a child, though, he is able to pin her with a predatory, almost angry glance that he directs to the quaking goblin before him a second later.

"You do realize where I'm going to send you, don't you?"

The goblin pauses for a second before nodding quickly.

"The Bog o'—"

"Jareth?"

He looks up again, blinks, and then returns to the goblin.

"On second thought, you may go. I have to speak with Sarah."

The goblin shuffles off, and from somewhere a door creaks open and closed.

"What are you doing?"

"Sarah, you're here!"

The grin that splits his face surprises her, because she had expected a welcome more along the lines of the glances he had given her.

"I suppose I am. What were you doing just now?" She shifts from foot to foot because his expression has darkened again.

"Father tells me to deal with the goblins. They're not ours but they're here and they're like little _children_, always loud and crass and bullying each other, starting fights…"

Sarah arches an eyebrow, something like she had seen him do before during her time in the labyrinth.

"Bullying each other? It seems to me like you were bullying that goblin just now."

He looks skeptical. "Hoggle? He's always causing trouble. I'm thinking of sending him to take care of the garden out by the gate. Perhaps then it would keep him out of mischief."

Disbelief clouds her expression, and she almost does not hear his questions of "what, what?" because she is too busy trying to reconcile the goblin she had just seen with the Hoggle that helped her through the labyrinth.

"Perhaps that would be a good idea. Just… do me a favor and make sure he doesn't get too lonely, okay?"

Jareth's expression clouds over—she would almost say that he pouts—before he finally mutters his agreement.

**A/N**

Sorry for the delay!


	11. XI

She is called back the very next day, and she is lucky that she even managed to get dressed. As it is, her wet hair drips down her back.

"Sarah!" He crashes into her, almost knocking her off balance and into the loose dirt at her feet. She knows this place, but the last time she saw it the sky burned as lava. Now it is a clear, flawless blue.

"Jareth, what's going on?" Her voice shakes, making her sound terrified, but in reality she is trying not to cry, again, because he still looks to be years younger than her, again. But at least this time he is a little more mature, a little more familiar to the man that she first met. Perhaps seventeen.

"I am confused, Sarah. I do not know what to do."

"What's wrong?" She asks, returning his hug and resisting the urge to stroke his hair in comfort. It's still wild but it isn't nearly as long.

"My father is dying."

The words are enough to make her take a shaking breath, because although she does not know his father she can feel how Jareth is torn, she can feel his sadness and grief.

"I'm sorry, Jareth, I—"

"I am thinking of abdicating the throne." Sarah stiffens, and although she believes that it hasn't happened yet, she can feel her time in the labyrinth slipping away.

_No!_ She thinks! _No! I already secured Hoggle's friendship, now he's going to—no!_

"You can't do that." She tells him harshly.

"I might." He baits her.

"If you do that, I can never visit you again. _Never_. Do you understand me?" Her words are harsh, even cruel to the suffering boy, but panic swells in her heart so big that she feels as if she might be sick.

His eyes grow wide—"I won't, then!"—and she breathes out a shuddering breath.

"Thank you, thank you."

Silence. And then—"You're coming back, then, are you?"

"I am." She assures him. "Of course I am. At least twice, I think."

"What do you mean?"

"It's time. It's weird. I'll see you in the future, but it will be my past." She feels almost desperate to tell him this, and she thinks that maybe if he understands, _maybe_ he won't grant the wish later.

"What do you mean?" He sounds worried all over again.

"I'm not sure, but I think—"

And then she is torn away, back staring at her bathroom mirror. Sarah sinks to the floor and tries desperately not to cry.


	12. XII

Sarah is agitated. Toby is acting up, which it is not abnormal for six-year-olds to do, but it is the manner in which he is acting up that worries her.

He will not go to sleep, and Sarah has an essay to be working on. She tries another story—Rumplestiltskin—but he refuses that one too.

"Alright, kiddo. What story do you want?"

"I don't _know_." He tells her with a child's exasperation. "If I knew, I'd say. But it's about a maze."

Sarah has the sneaking, sickening suspicion that she knows what she is talking about.

"I thought you didn't like Greek myths, buddy. Doesn't the minotaur scare you?"

Toby sighs dramatically. "I don't _want_ the minotaur story. You've told me this one before! There's a maze and a girl and a King and a pig and a fox and a beast, I think."

Sarah's suspicion is confirmed. She told him the Labyrinth story, once, on a whim, but she did not think that he would remember—that had been two years ago, and he had been four. Sarah certainly had not counted on him remembering anything from it.

"By 'pig,' do you mean Hoggle?"

"Yeah!"

"Are you sure you want me to tell you that story?" She asks, trying to stall for time to think. She really, _really_ does not want to rehash this and she does not want to think about the epilogue—or prologue—that she is currently _sort of_ living through. It has actually been a while since she has made a wish, any wish, partly because she is afraid to go back.

Why is it that she can only go back when he's in trouble or distressed? She worries about what will happen if he doesn't need her anymore, what will happen when he gets his kingdom sorted out.

Sarah is absolutely _terrified_ that her wishes won't work again and she'll be cut off from the labyrinth and from him forever.

But Toby pleads for the story again and Sarah swallows her own uncertainties. Maybe, in remembering the story in its entirety, she can discover something that will help her.

So she starts.

"Once upon a time, there was a girl that made a wish…"


	13. XIII

Sarah makes another wish. She has the required reading done, though she does think that she will have to go over it again, and so has a free evening.

She appears in the middle of a room—what she thinks she recognizes as the throne room—and it is a mess of goblins and noise and torn paper.

"No deal, King Jareth. As trite as you might think our plight, we will no longer forgive or overlook the insults you show us." A particularly stout goblin shouted over the din.

Jareth, looking weary and sad, slouches in the throne. No crown distinguishes him as monarch, but everybody else in the room shows him reverence by keeping a respectful distance. All but Sarah—she hopes that he will not take it as an offence.

She meets his eyes for a second and hopes that he takes the hint.

"Mugworp, I beg ten minutes to speak with my advisor. Until then, you may wait here or in the rooms you have so generously been assigned during your stay here." He stood, not waiting for the goblin's reply, and led Sarah into an out of the way door to the side of the throne.

"Council chambers," He tells her, and rubs his temples.

"What have you gotten into this time?" She asks with a light smile, trying to alleviate the grave expression he wears.

"War, potentially. The goblins have decided that they live here now—some, not all—and they have not done anything outward to provoke a war, but my other subjects are… uneasy with the growing goblin population. You understand how I can't just let it go unchecked."

"Of course I do, but you can't let them wage a war either."

Jareth pinches the bridge of his nose and nods.

"Let's start with this; why have they started immigrating here?"

He lets loose a deep sigh and relates to her a tale of a cruel king, and mass poverty and finishes with, "I understand why they want to get away, and I would like to offer them refuge, but currently I cannot handle this influx. I've spent time away from the capital city in an attempt to fix things here, and I fear that things are falling apart _there_."

Sarah nods and awkwardly pats his back.

"This is going to sound silly, but have you tried explaining that to them?"

Jareth looks up at her from where he has his face buried in his hands, and manages a weak smile.

"You'd make a terrible King, Sarah."


	14. XIV

Sarah takes one second to decide that people _suck_. Really, really suck.

In particular, Michael Knolbrook sucks.

She knows that she's supposed to be the adult (she _is_ twenty one, almost twenty two by now) but it is just so _difficult_ when the creep openly leers at her from the other side of the courtyard.

Admiring, she guesses that she can handle. Leaving sweet notes in her mailbox she also wouldn't mind, but Michael takes it just a _little_ too far a new letter every day that she doesn't even really bother to read anymore. Most of the time she just throws them out.

It's a little hard to handle, and she wonders every now and then if she's acting abnormally—after all, she never really dated in high school, and she was too busy in college. And _now_ she's scrambling to secure a job at one of the local elementary schools.

It doesn't leave much time for dating… Or time travelling by wishes, but she hushes the part of her that thinks that. Sarah will_ make_ time.

But she brings herself back to Michael Knolbrook. He's sitting at her little kitchen table with a grin on his face that just _screams_ his door works just fine, thank you, and he's not locked out from his phone and computer. Just by coincidence, of course, he's taken pains to assure her.

"Mrs. Bailey lives just down the hall. Sorry, Michael, I've got to be somewhere soon." It's not a lie—she really _does_ have to be somewhere soon.

That place just happens to be a labyrinth.

She can feel the urge to make a wish growing; it's almost like an itch, like the place itself (or Jareth, maybe, she thrills to think) is calling her back. She always, always gives in, and so far she has always, always been able to visit, at least for a little.

"No problem, Sarah. If you need me to, I could drive you." He offers amiably.

"Thanks, Michael, but no. I don't need a ride."

She rocks back and forth on her heels nervously as they stand in the doorway.

"If you ever _do_ need a ride…"

"Thanks, Michael. I'll keep that in mind. Bye."

"Bye, Sarah."

"_Bye._" She stresses. Every time she opens her mouth it grows harder and harder not to _I wish_ something and she really doesn't want to disappear right in front of Michael. Or wish him away.

But finally, finally he is gone, and the second her door is closed, she wishes.


	15. XV

"Oh my God." Sarah breathes. A sudden rush of vertigo makes her almost stumble off of the ledge she stands precariously on.

"Hold on."

Hands grab her waist and spin her around. When her vision stops spinning, she sees a very confused and rather owlish Goblin King.

"What—"

"—are you doing here?" He finishes her question, and Sarah blinks up in surprise too. He looks a little more human now, and a little less like an owl.

"I don't know—I made a wish. What are you doing up _here?_" She peers nervously over the ledge again and he grabs one of her hands and squeezes it.

"I am learning a new form."

"An owl." She says. He nods and looks for a second as if he wants to ask how she knows.

"It is coming along quite nicely; I was just testing how long I could fly, and I ended up here."

Sarah looks around again. She guesses that it's a pretty enough view; they seem to be standing on top of some sort of tall ruin and they're surrounded by forests, but it is nighttime and so everything is cloaked in shadows. The stars glow in the distance, brighter than she has ever seen from the park or her parent's house, or even her own apartment.

It would be nice if she didn't have less than a square foot of crumbling stone to stand on.

"What are you really doing here?" Sarah asks, suddenly suspicious. As soon as she asks, he looks as if he's just been caught doing something wrong.

"What gives you the idea that I have been doing anything but practicing a rather difficult magic?"

Sarah scowls at him and points to his face.

"I appreciate the fact that you're showing some sort of emotion, but right now it's just getting you into trouble. What are you skipping out on?"

"Absolutely nothing, Sarah."

"Tra-la-la?" She asks, raising an eyebrow. Jareth shoots her another surprised look.

"My mother sometimes says that."

Sarah resists the urge to push him a little.

"You're not going to change the subject."

It is now Jareth's turn to scowl, and he does it magnificently.

"Court affairs, naturally. There's a ball tonight that I could not quite find the patience to go to."

"Do you do this often?"

"Only when I can no longer stand everybody there. They never were my favorite people to be around." He shrugs and almost knocks Sarah from her perch on the edge of the column.

When she can breathe normally and her pulse has quieted, she pats him on the shoulder awkwardly.

"Just don't shut yourself off, okay?"


	16. XVI

Merlin is dead.

Sarah shudders in her blanket and tries to pull it tighter, but there's no blanket left.

_It's not fair_.

She wants to say the words and the wants to say _The Words_ but she can't because her throat seems almost swollen shut.

It's not as if she didn't know he would have to die, one day, it's just that until now she had never given any true thought to the event. Merlin is—it hurts to think in past tense—her friend, possibly her _best_ friend; he is the thing that got her through her parent's divorce and her father's subsequent remarriage; he let her cry on him, and he never complained.

At the time, it meant a lot to Sarah. It means so much more now.

It isn't a surprise though; Sarah knew that he was an old dog, perhaps a little _too_ old, a little too lucky to be living quite so long.

The phone call is hard to replay in her mind, and she's not quite sure why she keeps doing it, but she does.

"Hello?"

"Sarah? I hope you're not busy, honey, but I've got some bad news…"

"What? Sorry dad, I was just about to go for a run…"

"Merlin is dead, Sarah, I'm so sorry."

The phone dropped—Sarah can still feel the sting on her foot and knows that she will have a bruise when she looks tomorrow.

It's not her first brush with death either, but her grandfather had died when she was too young to really understand, so when she finally got the concept of death, that wound was so long healed that she couldn't really mourn.

But Merlin…

Sarah wonders how Ambrosias is, but doesn't think that it's the right time to make a wish. Instead she rolls over so that she is facing away from the window. She doesn't want to see the stars or the moon or the empty branch four feet away from the glass.


	17. XVII

Life for Sarah is very, very busy. She has a job now, filling in for a first-grade teacher while she is out on pregnancy leave for the rest of the year, and while the kids are fun, they certainly are a handful. Some days she feels more like a glorified babysitter than a teacher of anything.

But most days it _is_ fun—she likes the kids—and she decides that if she isn't happy, she is at least content. Sarah can settle for that.

She hasn't made any wishes for a few months, bordering on almost a year, but she tells herself that if she isn't needed any more she can settle for that too.

_But she wants to be needed_, even if she won't admit it. And Sarah will not admit it, because that would be too close to admitting that she needed _him_, and she has long ago decided that she doesn't want to need anybody. Sarah is a perfectly capable human being, and she decides to remain that way.

But it would be nice to at least know if he thinks about her, every now and then.

"Bret, stop pulling on Josie's hair!" Sarah calls, rushing over to the crying girl and the boy with a fistful of her pigtail.

"Miss Williams," Josie says between tears, "Bret's being _mean_ again."

"I know, Josie. As soon as we go inside, Bret's going to have to move his sticker into the red zone." Bret hangs his head and stares at his feet.

"Bret," Sarah turns to the boy, "What are we not going to do again?"

"Pull hair." He mutters sheepishly.

"Good. When we go inside, I really do expect you to move your sticker this time. Until then, though, why don't you go to the slide?"

Bret runs off to the large yellow slide and Sarah watches the rest of her charges scattered about the playground. On the other side, an aide is scolding somebody else.

"Miss Williams," Josie pulls on Sarah's sleeve, "Bret was making fun of me for playing with the goblins."

"Was he now?" But Sarah is not really listening.

"The goblins say that they miss you."

_That_ certainly got her attention.

"Do they?"

"_Yeah_, they say that they miss the girl that ate the peach and then they point to you. Do you know the goblins too?"

"How long have you been playing with the goblins?"

The little pigtailed girl's face lights up, and Sarah can tell that she has just broached her favorite subject of conversation.

"For ever and ever, since I was little! I _think_ I remember being in a castle, like that story you read us once, maybe. It was made of stones and was _huge!_ But when I ask my mom she says it's just a dream and says to not be silly." Josie pulls a face and then stares into Sarah's face as seriously as a first grader can.

"Do _you _believe me?"

Suddenly Sarah's mouth is dry, and she can't tell if it's because of the heat of the day or the way Josie's eyes have hardened but when she answers, it's barely above a whisper.

"Yes, Josie. I believe you."


	18. XVIII

It has been a year exactly to the day since she has been to the Underground. Sure, she wishes. But she doesn't go anywhere, and that's not a surprise because when she says them, the words seems hollow.

Sarah no longer lives in a fairytale.

When Michael asks her out three weeks before her twenty third birthday, she accepts. She doesn't think anything will come from it—in fact, she _knows_ nothing will come from it, but she needs _something_ besides six year olds and their daydreams and fights and lovingly-done drawings to occupy her.

She has her own class, now, but she still finds herself wallowing in something—sorrow, self-pity, maybe.

Michael is boring. And lecherous.

When it comes time to leave him at her door, she is exceedingly grateful. Sarah claims a headache and then locks the deadbolt, leaning against the door in real exhaustion.

_Never again_, she seethes.

They have absolutely nothing common.

As she steps over the line that divides her little living room and kitchen, the power goes out. Thunder claps, and sounds as if it were directly over her building. Lightning illuminates Sarah's kitchen for a second, long enough for her to find an emergency candle under her sink, and to catch a glimpse outside her window.

There is an owl in the tree.

For a second, just a second, her breath catches. The eyes are large and the right color, but when lightning spears the sky again, she can catch the color of the feathers.

It's a dark, murky brown, and the bird is much too large to be the right owl she's searching for. Sarah lets out a disappointed sigh and draws the blinds.

It is an unusual night—the storm must have knocked over a power line—and everything is eerily quiet. The wind should be howling, but she can't hear it unless she opens her window. It's a shame, she muses to herself; she likes storms now. The wind and the rain and the lightning keep her awake with an eager sort of anticipation.

And for some reason, when they end, she always feels disappointed.

_Very strange_, she thinks, _that I used to be afraid of them._

She used to cry or hide under her blankets or in the nearest lap until they were over, but not now.

No, now she will waste half a night sitting beside a lone candle, simply watching the lightning and listening for the music of the thunder and the wind.

And maybe she waits for a little bit of a fairytale, too.

* * *

><p><strong>AN  
><strong>For some reason I can't reply to reviews individually at the moment, so I'll use a little space here.  
><strong>notwritten:<strong> Thanks! And you keep smiling too. :)  
><strong>the-salt-monster<strong>: Thank you too! As for the update... For some reason I couldn't upload anything here last night. Does that happen a lot on ?  
><strong>Jade9:<strong> Oh my, _three_ reviews from you were waiting for me when I got home. Exciting! I don't particularly enjoy dances myself, so maybe that came out a little there... I actually stressed a bit coming up with something for Sarah to do as a job, but now I'm glad that she ended up being a teacher. It makes everything so much more _convenient_. And as for Josie, I absolutely meant for her to be a wished-away. :)


	19. XIX

It is the day of her twenty third birthday, and her family is over. Toby has made everybody ear ridiculous party hats, and her father looks ridiculous with a party kazoo hanging out of his mouth, looking for all the world like some sort of G-rated cigarette.

It's a nice half of an hour before the phone rings.

"What do you want, Michael?" Sarah snaps into the phone. "I'm a little busy."

"You've _been_ busy, Sarah. Do you want to go on another date sometime?"

"No. I've said so before. My answer will not change." She lowers her voice so that her family can't hear, but her snarl is fierce.

"Sarah—"

She hangs up.

"Who was that?" Her father asks.

"Nobody," She tells him, but her voice is a little sharper than she would have liked. Michael always puts her in a bad mood.

The cake is cut, and Sarah has two presents to open—one from Toby and one from her father and stepmother, respectively, but Sarah is not in the mood to smile anymore. She tries anyway.

Right before they leave, Karen takes Sarah aside.

"Are you having problems?"

"No, don't worry. I'm fine."

Karen does not look reassured.

"Look, if I need anything, I'll call you guys, okay?"

"Okay." But her stepmother's voice is uncertain. She looks back, concerned, when they leave.

When their car turns the corner, Sarah rushes to the back of her closet the rifles through a dusty old box. Again, she pulls out a doll and a music box but she sets those aside in favor of the little red book.

The urge to make a wish rises suddenly and she becomes dizzy, stumbling a little when she stands, but she bites her lips together.

She isn't sure she wants to wish; isn't sure she wants to go back only to wait another year between visits, because the year, while still only just over three hundred days, is _long_.

She feels sick, and clutches the book in white-knuckled hands.

Another wave of nausea swallows her, and Sarah blurts out the words. Immediately, she feels better.

And immediately, she feels like she is the butt of some joke. Instead of Jareth, she is surrounded by what seems to be a crowd of very surprised and very displeased guards.

To say they do not react kindly to her sudden appearance might be an understatement.


	20. XX

"Get off me! I'm supposed to be here, I—"

Something is _wrong_. Jareth's face is not kind, and this time he looks _angry _with her. Sarah can't figure it out. She looks up from her lower vantage point and almost shakes. She's seen him upset, perhaps disgusted, maybe, when she was fifteen and in the labyrinth But not like this—not _furious_.

"Are you, Sarah?"

She startles back slightly and expects to bump into one of the guards again, but they're not there. For some reason, she wishes that they were.

The nausea is gone, but it has been replaced with a sick sort of dread. Sarah still clutches the book in her hands, willing it to be some sort of shield, a remedy for either his anger or her confusion.

"Yes, I… I was called. I made a wish, it—it_ worked_ this time so I'm supposed to… To do something. Again. Like before. I don't know." Her words go between quick and slow, excited and hesitant. Sarah wants to bury her head in her hands, or cry, or throw a tantrum, but she is too old for fits and a little too proud to cry. Besides, the book in her hands leaves no room for her head.

So instead she pins him with a glare. He glares right back.

But then he notices what she has in her hands.

"Let me see that book." His voice holds a strange tone of urgency and eagerness.

In her surprise, Sarah almost drops the little red book when she brings it up to face-level.

"What, this?"

"Yes."

She frowns and considers the book, turning it over in her hands.

"Call me petty, but I don't think I will. You're being awfully rude, and if it's something I've done, you can at least explain it to me."

"Just hand me the book, _Sa_rah."

"Fine," she sniffs, "But it's just a children's book, it's—"

Jareth stares at it and flips it back on forth, and Sarah gets the distinct impression that he can't even hear her.

"Hello?" She asks, uncertain.

"I was going to write this." He stares at it, almost mystified. "I _did_ write this."

"What do you mean? I had that book ever since I was a little kid."

Jareth does not reply, and instead beings to flip through the book.

He mutters something to himself that Sarah does not quite manage to catch.

"What?"

"I was going to give it to you, but I did not know that I would give it to you at such a young age…"

Sarah makes a confused noise and shrugs.

"But that's when I got it. Why were you writing it, anyway? And if you gave it to _me_, why are there other children wished away?"

"It's an old tale, the Goblin King." He waves his hand dismissively. "But as for giving it to you, I had to trap you in my clutches somehow, didn't I?" He asks with a wry smile.


	21. XXI

With a great breath of air, Sarah blew the dust off her old box of books.

"Go ahead, buddy. Just tell me when you're done so that I can put it all away." Toby nods and starts to pull the slim volumes out of the box.

Robert, from across the room, gestures that his daughter should come and sit by him.

"Thanks for this, Sarah. We get him books but he always wants to read your copies."

Sarah shrugs.

"I wrote notes in the margins, when I liked something or when I thought something was odd. Maybe that's what he likes about them."

"Maybe," he agrees. "Your mother would like to know if you want to go to see something on Broadway."

He clasps his hands and presses his thumbs together so hard that the skin around them turns white. Sarah knows that he's nervous; he only does that when he's stressed or anxious.

"I thought Karen was in Oregon visiting her mother in the hospital?"

Robert holds his breath and lets his out in a rush when he speaks.

"Not Karen, Sarah. Linda."

Sarah bites the inside corner of her lip and shrugs. She tries not to fidget too much or to wring her hands, like she does when she is nervous. In the end, she decides that an unsettled sigh will convey her thoughts on the subject appropriately enough.

"I don't know, dad. I'll think about it."

At that moment Toby runs back into the room, waving a book around, excited.

"Dad, look at this one! It's got a knight and a prince that might turn evil, and there are two princesses and a duck and a crow."

"That's a really good one." Sarah nods. "I'm going to put the box back, if that's all you want for now."

Toby nods and begins to page through the book again.

"About her offer," she calls to Robert, busying herself with the large box, "I'll think about it, like I said. When does she need to know by, or is it an open timeframe?"

Sarah tries very hard to make her voice sound casual.

**A/N**  
>The "book" that Toby picked is actually a show called <em>Princess Tutu<em>, which is actually a lot more awesome and heartbreaking than it sounds. I only turned it into a book because I rather suddenly woke up today and wanted to watch it.


	22. XXII

It's raining in New York, and Sarah does not have an umbrella.

In fact, it's _pouring_ in New York, Sarah does not have so much as a notebook to hold over her head, and Linda is half an hour late. The airport is not really a very comfortable place to rest, and Sarah is exhausted. She caught a red eye flight because it was cheaper and Linda had agreed to pick her up so that she did not have to catch a taxi and stay awake for the ride by herself.

But Linda has not shown up yet and Sarah really does not want to step outside and get drenched. Plus, she doesn't even know her mother's address.

So Sarah settles down on one of the straight-backed chairs that vaguely remind her of a seat from a movie theater and uses her bag as an ottoman.

She manages to catch what might be fifteen minutes of sleep before somebody taps her shoulder lightly and whispers "I think your mother's here."

Sarah sits up, startled, and almost kicks over her suitcase in her panic to stand.

"Mom!" She almost shouts, waving at the tall, dark-haired woman across the terminal. Linda waves back and shakes her umbrella a little to rid it of as much of the rain as she can.

"Oh—thanks." But the person that woke her is nowhere to be seen, and Sarah's gratitude falls flat.

"How was your flight, darling?"

"It was pretty good. Very dark," Sarah grins, "but good."

"That's good. Do you want to go back to my apartment? You could rest for a while and then I could take you sightseeing. And you just _have_ to go to this little shop—so quaint, you know—but they have the most adorable…"

It's wrong of her to tune her mother out, Sarah knows this. But she also knows that until her mother says what she feels she needs to she will not get a word in edgewise, and Sarah would rather avoid trying to talk over her.

"Yeah, I would like that."

Linda leads her daughter back outside, but under the protection of an umbrella this time, and into a taxi.

Sarah pretends to sleep while they travel, and she ruminates.

It's almost always awkward or tense when she sees her mother, but it's not really for lack of trying to fix what relationship they once had; most of the time their schedules do not overlap, and the distance hardly helps.

But they both try too hard, and they both know it, so whatever they try to do to reconcile mother and daughter ends up strained.

_And,_ Sarah thinks, _it really doesn't help that she and dad don't talk at all._

Maybe Sarah could have stood it if they at least had pretended to be friendly when she was little and didn't really understand the divorce. Maybe things would have been a little different.

As she thinks that, Sarah finally falls asleep.


	23. XXIII

The store Anthropologie might be her personal bane of existence.

Linda absolutely adores it, and Sarah likes it too, but it is appallingly expensive and some of the people that shop there are a little too snooty for Sarah's taste.

And everything is _covered_ in owls.

The dresses, the bags, the jewelry are all dripping with the birds, and Sarah even spotted a pair of heels that had owl peeking out by the toes.

There were the generic, stylized owls, accurately portrayed eagle owls, snowy owls, screech owls, and barn owls. She feels like their wide, staring eyes are following her wherever she goes in the store, and is a little unnerved.

There are even little stuffed animals sitting innocently at eye level on a shelf. Sarah stares down a barn owl and then turns away and picks up a grey one, thinking that she doesn't really need _another_ reminder of something passed.

The little grey owl is the only thing that she purchases at the store, but Linda leaves with two bags full of new clothes.

A show on Broadway is after that, and the experience is just short of magical—because Sarah knows true magic—particularly because every single member of the cast appeared to truly love what they were doing.

For a second, Sarah wished she could be up on a stage like that, reciting lines and waiting for the audience to clap.

But where had reciting lines gotten her before?

"Sarah," Linda turns to her the second the show is over, "how did you like it?"

"I enjoyed it, a lot. Thanks for letting me come." She smiled widely at her mother. It's a truce, of sorts. The tension is gone and in the dark theatre they again are mother and daughter. But she still toys with the little owl in her hands.

"I didn't know you liked owls so much, Sarah." She thinks for a moment, tapping her painted red lips before grinning.

"I know! You used to have this book—heaven knows where you picked it up—but it had a king that could turn into an owl in it. You loved it so much; you used to say that you could see little goblins."

Sarah laughs, but it is nervously.

"I didn't know that."

"You did," Linda nods, "and you had the _biggest_ crush on the one character."

**A/N**  
>Anthropologie is a real store in New York and when I visited it earlier this year, almost <em>everything<em> had an owl on it. I was thrilled.


	24. XXIV

It's not funny, this forest, and she's damn tired of it. She didn't like it to begin with, when she lost Ludo among the trees and then got tied up with those Fieries…

She hates it even more, now, but this time her resentment is based on grief and not terror.

Pre-labyrinth Jareth has cornered her. He's supposed to be trying to tame the Fieries—a futile effort, she knows—but instead he's talking about the book he has yet to write and the future and marriage.

Sarah can only shake her head, dumfounded and half wishing that he didn't seem so happy.

"I want to write the book as a sort of engagement present."

"It will never work." She tells him, hoping that he'll catch her meaning this time.

"I know, not right now. I can't quite pin down the story—"

"No, you don't understand me. It will never work; I want it to—you have no _idea_ how much I want it to, but it can't."

"What do you mean?"

"I travel, you know that. I'm not too sure on the mechanisms of it myself—I just make the wishes when I feel that one needs to be made—but it won't work because of that. I've made… other wishes. I wished my brother away to you."

A flash of confusion crosses his face and he is about to open his mouth to speak when Sarah continues.

"But I was younger. You were older—like I've said, it's… complicated—but I was scared of you at the time. And you kept coming around after I won, after I beat the labyrinth." It is difficult for Sarah to keep the tumult of emotions she is feeling out of her voice, but she tries valiantly. Trying to put off continuing, she rubs her forehead with her hand.

"I do not see how _that_ is much of a problem, Sarah."

"But I didn't know you!"

He stares at her, and in her mind she can hear him repeating his previous words.

"I wished you away too." That final, dreadful admission forces her eyes down to her feet; she does not want to see his face.

"That's why I'm saying no." But she isn't sure if he even hears her words, she whispers them so timidly.

He is silent for a solid minute, and when he speaks his voice is frigid.

Belatedly, she realizes _he's talking about the Labyrinth book—_but she does not have time to revel in this understanding.

"I see."

**A/N**  
>Here you go Jade9! Jareth! :)<p> 


	25. XXV

On Monday, Sarah calls in sick to the school. She barely wakes up in time to get the call in. Anxiety keeps her from moving, and she wonders if she's being a little overdramatic.

Toby doesn't seem to be in contact with any of the goblins, like Josie was, but Sarah isn't really surprised by that, not after she wished away the Goblin King. And Josie is not in Sarah's class anymore, either, and for the first time Sarah finds herself _almost_ considering wishing that a child had been held back for something. It's horrible, she knows; but Josie hears from the goblins while Sarah does not. Her only link is through her wishes, and she hasn't wished for _anything_, or has even had the courage to wish for anything. The Labyrinth book isn't even in her possession anymore—she left that with Jareth—or she would read it over again like she usually does when she's stressed.

_Maybe, _she thinks, _this is the end of the wishes._

The thought has a dreadful ring of sense to it—after all, Jareth might have been sending the summonings to begin with, and he certainly had not liked hearing that at some point in his future she would wish him away.

Sarah can only think that _she'd_ be upset in he had said the same thing to her.

…But she wants to go back, and if he is trying to keep her out or something, well…

Her will is as strong as his, her kingdom as great and all that jazz. Sarah is confident that she'll get back—but that doesn't mean that she really wants to rush it.

If she only knew when she would next show up, things might be a little different; but she doesn't really want to show up when they're both tense—again. And she _really_ wishes that she could get a little forewarning when he'd just had a bit of a tiff with her that she didn't know about and _wouldn't_ know about until later.

_It's so unfair_ she groans inwardly for the millionth time, but now she thinks that she might have a basis for comparison.


	26. XXVI

"Ah, hello?" Sarah asks, blinking into the sunlight that her blinds let in. She glances at her clock and is appalled to see that it's five thirty in the morning, much too early to be picking up phones.

"Sarah! Sorry to be calling so early, but Robert's had to go into work today; they've had a bit of an emergency in at the firm. I was just wondering if you wanted to have a girl's day out today."

"Uh," Sarah shields her eyes from the light of her window and looks at her clock again. "Yeah, sure. Can I have an hour or something to get ready?"

She can practically hear Karen nodding enthusiastically on the other end of the line.

"Of course, I'll just drop Toby off at the babysitter's. And I'll tell you what—I'll pick you up, okay?"

"Okay." Sarah is about to place the phone back on its rocker but she pauses and places it back by her ear.

"And Karen? Thank you."

"You're welcome."

With that, Sarah hangs up the phone and crawls out of bed.

Karen arrives an hour later, as she said she would. Sarah climbs into the passenger side of her car and agrees to breakfast. They choose a little café that has nice coffee.

"What's wrong, Sarah? You've seemed… very sad, lately."

Sarah picks at her French toast with her fork and avoids her stepmother's eyes.

"I've had a bit of a… relationship problem I'm still kind of trying to… work though."

Karen nods sagely.

"I thought it was something like that. I don't want to pry, but Sarah, what happened?"

She shrugs and picks more at her food, shifting in her seat uncomfortably.

"Karen, I… I don't—um, I mean." Her breath comes out in a rush of defeated air. "I kind of… broke up with somebody. I mean… I don't know what it is, really. He… proposed to me, and I had to say no."

Karen rests her head on folded hands and frowns sympathetically.

"Why did you have to say no?"

Again, Sarah shrugs.

"I just… didn't think it would work out. Our… schedules are too different, I don't know—I didn't think—that it would work too well because of that. I didn't want to, you know… not be around."

Karen purses her lips and looks away; Sarah knows by now that this means that she's thinking.

"Maybe you should take a chance, Sarah. If your schedules not working out is your biggest concern… why don't you try to make them work?"

Sarah nods, shaking a little.

"I'll see. I'm afraid that I might have hurt him, a little, but… I'll see what I can salvage."

Karen smiles widely and pats Sarah's hand.

"Just remember to bring this mystery man around sometime, okay?"


	27. XXVII

She dreams of him and in it he is dead.

He rests in his coffin, eyes closed, hands folded over his stomach in the traditional pose, with a severe frown marring his face.

Sarah can't tell what happened, just that he is dead.

_And I never got to say—_

She steps forward and places her hand on the smooth, polished wood.

"Jareth?" Her voice is meek, pitiful, even to her own ears. Sarah half expects him to sit up… It is a dream, after all.

But he does not.

Sarah sits, eyes wide and awake in the lingering fear from her dream, gasping for air that can't come fast enough to her lungs.


	28. XXVIII

Sarah doesn't know why she is here, but she knows that something is very, very odd about _this_ wish. She had come to tell him of the decision she had reached—the decision that Karen had helped her come to, but everything has gone so_ wrong_. Jareth looks almost identical to how he did when she ran the labyrinth, but something tells her that her fifteen year old self has already come and gone.

So she sits at the magnificent table, listening to Jareth talk about his wife; she's beautiful, she's clever, she's kind, and she's just so _special_.

Everybody around them nods and claps in agreement.

Sarah feels sick and there's only one thought going through her mind: _I've made this all up._

Everything.

The moonlit ledge, the goblins returning, Josie's "the goblins miss you" assurances, the rosemary, and even, she wants to shudder, Jareth's proposal.

She supposes that she can't fault him—she _did _tell him that it would be difficult, at best—and she thinks that she knows what he was thinking. It's much, much too difficult to keep track of a relationship in which one person could disappear and simply not come back.

So Sarah doesn't fault him.

But she hates him when he looks down at her out of the corner of his eye.

_What do you want me to do?_ She wants to scream at him. She wants to pick up the napkin placed properly on her lap, throw it at him and storm out of the room. She wants to cry. She wants to wish away the entire situation. Sarah wants to do a lot of things, but she does none of them.

Instead, when Jareth quits his speech and everybody's attention is captured by the entertainers at the other end of the hall, Sarah stands quietly and slips out of the hall through one of the smaller side doors.

She finds herself in that damned rosemary garden, again, and curls up on the carved bench, rubbing her temples.

"Sarah?"

She breathes in and holds her breath before she can trust herself to speak.

"I'm happy for you, Jareth. I really am."

There is quiet between them, and dark, broken only by little fireflies and the sound of Sarah trying to steady her breathing.

"Sarah, I do not—"

"No, no, it's okay. I get it, I really do, and I really _am _happy for you, I just…I think I want to go home. I'm not sure what I'm doing here this time." Sarah shrugs, defeated, but doesn't think that he can see it in the dark.

"Sarah, precious…"

"I wish I was home."

And she is.


	29. XXIX

It's a really nice day out; the sky is a clear blue and the sun is out, but it's not too hot because the slight chill of autumn is beginning to slowly enter the air. The trees still hold their green foliage, though, and the hint of a chill only comes in gusts of wind every now and then.

And her father had asked her out on a "father-daughter day," which Sarah suspects was prompted by Karen. She doesn't care, though, because they haven't had one of these for a while.

They used to do it a lot, especially after the divorce and before Karen came into the pictures. Robert would take his daughter out to get ice cream from one of the little mobile stands at the park and they'd sit and feed the ducks or swans—whatever happened to be there—and those are some of Sarah's favorite memories.

Small wonder she'd gone back to the park when the world was so _unfair_ and Karen and Toby were both very new variables in her life.

The father-daughter days had slowed, and then crawled to a stop after that, and Sarah went to the park more often and lingered there longer hours.

So Sarah almost finds it strange that they're back there, sitting on a new bench, eating soft-serve ice cream like the past fifteen years haven't really happened.

"So Karen tells me that you're dating somebody."

It's an awkward icebreaker, and Sarah almost chokes while she nibbles on the cone. She should have _known_.

"Not now. But if I were, is that a crime?" Her voice has a definite chill that she doesn't really intend to be there.

Robert mutters "no," and goes back to his cone. They both stare out across the lake.

"He proposed." Sarah mutters into her own, and looks down at her swinging feet.

"I said no. He's moved on."

She drops her unfinished ice cream in favor of covering her eyes, but that does not stop the stray tear or two from trailing down her cheek.

"Shhh," Her father tries to comfort her, wrapping her in an embrace. "It's okay."

Sara is silent for a few minutes while she composes herself.

"I know it is." She eventually whispers. "It was my fault anyway."

Her father hands her a bag of bread crumbs and she tosses a handful to a pair of swans.


	30. XXX

_Lesson plans for a class of first grade children are not hard to prepare._

_Lesson plans for a class of first grade children are _not_ hard to prepare._

_Lesson plans for a class of first grade children are _not_ hard to prepare._

Sarah keeps telling herself this, but when she looks down at her notebook, she's not pleased to see that she wrote the phrase and underlined the 'not' with three violent strokes.

Because lesson plans are not hard to prepare, especially for the first week.

… But they might be when she can't find any of her pens, or the charging cord to her laptop, or even her folder of last year's plans. Sarah had been absolutely _certain_ that she'd left it in her filing cabinet beside her desk, but it isn't there. It isn't in any of the other drawers of the cabinet either, or anywhere near her desk, for that matter. She suppresses a groan and the desire to panic.

"I need those plans!"

She rifles through a pile of folders for what has to be the tenth time and bites the inside of her lip.

Sighing angrily, Sarah spins around in her desk chair and examines her bookshelf.

_The Lord of the Rings_ trilogy_, Wildwood Dancing, The Golden Compass, _and her giant book of fairytales stare back at her. _And_ sitting precariously on top is her bright yellow folder.

"Where have you been?" She cries at it, scooping it up in her arms and sorting through the papers inside it.

Sounds like little footsteps echo through her walls and Sarah wonders if there are mice in her building.

When she turns around to pick up her favorite green pen, it too is suddenly gone. Sarah _knows_ that she only put it down a minute ago and right beside her notebook, too.

Maybe there are mice in her apartment; Sarah wonders if she should consider getting a cat.


	31. XXXI

The first day of school is one of Sarah's favorites because in the grade that she teaches, at least, the kids are all perky and excited to be there. A few kids catch her eye immediately—little Brittany who has the habit of rocking back and forth on her heels when she's excited, Tommy and Mia, the twins who already finish each other's sentences, and Zach, who laughs the loudest out of anybody else in the class.

His smile comes easily and lights up his entire face, especially when he has the chance to share something. During story time he tells everybody excitedly about his new baby sister and how _bald_ she is. He assures everybody that she'll probably have the same dark sweep of hair that he does, though, and sighs as he says it as if has been something weighing on his mind for a long time.

There doesn't seem to be a budding bully in this class either, which Sarah is definitely grateful. It's as if somebody took pity on her and placed only the sweetest and most intelligent first graders available in her room.

During recess Sarah watches them all play together, and while Mia and Tommy do kind of keep to themselves, she watches Brittany and Zach mingle. Zach helps somebody from another class climb up the monkey bars while the wavy-haired Brittany chats excitedly with Amy, a shy little girl in Sarah's own class—she makes a mental note to sit them near each other.

The children serve as a nice distraction (though that is rude of her to think of them that way, even in part) and she _needs_ a little bit of a distraction.

Things keep disappearing from her apartment and while she tells herself it's only mice, very fat, larger-than-average mice, she _knows_ differently

She needs a distraction because she doesn't want to admit anything—that when she thinks of the labyrinth and its inhabitants, one in particular, she still feels slightly sick.


	32. XXXII

Sarah shrugs her messenger bag off of her shoulder and onto her small and rather beaten looking couch. Out of the corner of her eye she thinks she sees something move—and she does. Upon closer inspection, it is simply her cat, Guinevere.

"Hey, Gwen. Have a good day?" She asks, stroking the top of the little calico's head.

The cat seems agitated; she flicks her ears back and leans into Sarah's touch but does not close her eyes and purr like she would any other day.

"What's wrong, kitty-cat?" Trying to comfort her, Sarah picks Guinevere up and carries her into the small apartment's kitchen. Sarah herself is a little on edge and agitated, mostly because Michael, again, has been borderline harassing her, so when she sees the cat food bag completely empty and the food scattered across the floor, she almost drops the little cat in her arms.

"Gwen!" Sarah gasps, turning the cat to face her. "What have you done? I wasn't gone _that_ long!"

Sarah has noticed that the kitten had tried to stick very close to her over the past week, and Sarah now worries that she is developing separation anxiety—she certainly hadn't been like that when Sarah had first adopted her, but lately…

It's been different.

Sarah notices that small things have been disappearing—a cheap bracelet here, a picture or two there, and once her little grey stuffed owl mysteriously disappeared only to be returned a week later in a different, distinctly _whiter_ and _brownish _color.

Today is not the first day that she has seen shadows flitting around the edge of her vision. It isn't the second day either, but she isn't willing to admit to herself what she thinks—hopes—it is.

Because if she lets herself openly hope, and she is wrong, Sarah knows that she will be crushed.

Because she's trying to deny that she thinks she knows her little home intruders.

Because she's trying to deny that they're maybe—perhaps—probably—

_Goblins._


	33. XXXIII

The first snow has fallen, so recess is held in the gymnasium. The laughter of her students echoes off the walls and the pounding of feet shakes the ground if they get too close. A few bounce a ball back and forth, and Brittany has contented herself with learning how to jump rope.

But the peace is soon broken—a little scream cuts through the air, but there are so many moving bodies that Sarah cannot see where it comes from. A few kids stop what they are doing, but most ignore the cry (if they even heard it) and continue in their activities.

But from out of the crowd, Mia and Tommy approach Sarah. Mia's eyes are red, swollen, and there is a livid mark on her right cheek.

"Mia!"

"Miss Williams," Mia says in that whisper-voice of hers, "Zach hit me." Beside her, Tommy nods furiously and takes his sister's hand.

"Go to the nurse, Mia. Do you know where her office is?"

Mia hesitates, but nods.

"Tommy, why don't you go with her?" Tommy nods, and still hand in hand, they leave the gymnasium. Mia's a delicate little thing—she cries a lot, and Sarah wants to believe that it was a mistake, that Mia was exaggerating an accident… But the welt on her face speaks against that.

"Zach." There is authority in Sarah's voice as she stands tall over the little boy. "What did you do to Mia?"

Zach stares at Sarah, holds eye contact, and has what might be the angriest expression on his face that she has ever seen before. He mumbles something that in the din, Sarah does not catch.

"Can you say that again?"

"I hit her."

"Yes, I saw. Why did you hit her?"

She watches him shrug and he breaks the eye contact to look at his shoes, but she can see the scowl on his face.

"I don't know." He fidgets more.

"Look up at me, Zach." She softens her voice. "I'm going to need you to apologize to her and move your sticker back into the red zone. I'm also going to suspend your recesses for the rest of the week, okay?" It's only Wednesday, so the punishment is not as harsh as perhaps it should be—this is not the first time that Zach has harmed one of his classmates, and soon it will result in a phone call home, but Sarah wants to give him another chance. Up until just a few weeks ago he had been a perfect angel, but suddenly it was as if a switch had been flipped…

The dark circles under his eyes are more pronounced when he finally looks up at her.

"Can I eat lunch in your room too?"


	34. XXXIV

When Zach enters Sarah's classroom, her first instinct is to check his pulse. He's pale, as if he hasn't eaten or slept properly for a _least_ over the weekend, and the dark circles under his eyes are darker and bigger than she remembered them from the previous week. Other kids either notice or remember his viciousness from the past two or three months; they give him a wide berth, and even Meghan, who sits next to him in their little pod, scoots her chair as far away from him as she can go.

Trying not to feel the tension in the room, Sarah begins her lesson.

Halfway through explaining butterflies, a few kids start giggling.

As she explains how they crawl out of their chrysalis, the giggles grow louder.

"Ben," She says, turning to one of the nearest giggling kids, "please explain what exactly is so funny." She's irritated—something that the rest of the class picks up on—and he gulps, caught out.

"Well, you see Miss Williams… Zach's fallen asleep again."

Sarah tries to keep her face from twisting into a frown. He's only done this once before but nobody had to wake him—he startled into consciousness a few minutes later, but that doesn't seem to be the case this time.

"How long has he been asleep?" She asks quietly, watching him push his face a little deeper into the crook of his arm.

"Since you started with the butterflies." Ben replies, keeping his voice to a stage whisper.

Sarah nods and turns back to the board, pointing to the picture of a chrysalis she'd pinned up.

"Should we wake him up?" Meghan asks.

All eyes turn to Sarah, waiting for her reply. She's completely lost the attention of her class, and she knows this.

"No. Let him sleep, I'll talk to him after class."

The class is solemn for the rest of the time before lunch and recess, and when they all file out, subdued, Sarah taps Zach's shoulder.

"Are you okay, Zach?"

He stares up at her, bleary-eyed and blinks a few times before nodding.

"Okay. If you want to, you can go and get your lunch then come back. I'll walk with you if you want me to." She offers. He shakes his head slowly.

"Did you bring a lunch?" Again, he shakes his head. Sarah stands suddenly and opens a drawer near the bottom of her desk and pulls out a bag.

"Here, Zach. Eat this."

He takes the lunch bag in his hands and carefully pulls out a granola bar. He considers it and then tears open the wrapper, chewing it carefully.


	35. XXXV

Sarah stares at the phone in her hand for a full seven minutes before she dials a number and raises it to her ear. On the other end, it rings for an agonizingly long time and Sarah shifts her weight between her feet, nervous, until she hears somebody pick up.

"Hello?"

It's Toby—not really who she wanted to speak to.

"TobycouldyoupleasegetKaren?" Her words come out in a rush and she's sure he hasn't understood her, and is prepared for the silence that follows.

"Come again?" He asks.

"Toby, _please_ get Karen. As quickly as you can."

"Okay, jeez. Keep your hair on." She can hear him put the phone down and she can hear his footsteps through the house and then—"mom! Sarah's phoning!"—Karen picks up on another line.

"Hello, Sarah. How have you been?"

"Hi, Karen. I think I need help. There's this kid—one of my students, you see—and he's acting oddly. I can't figure it out and he didn't have a lunch today. I'm afraid for him."

There is silence on the other end of the line, broken only by Sarah's own ragged, harsh breathing and Karen's quiet intakes of air. The silence makes Sarah want to start pacing.

"How has he changed?"

Sarah breathes out a jangling sigh and runs a hand through her hair.

"At the beginning of the year he was such a nice little boy. He shared, helped other kids… Just generally sweet, you know? Always excited during story time but then…"

Sarah slows, remembering the one story he told the class—that of his baby sister.

"But then, a few weeks later things started to go downhill… It started as little things. He'd push a kid every now and then, not totally unheard of, but he apologized, and he wouldn't share so nicely every now and then but it's progressed even past that. He… He really hurt a little girl a few days ago, and he's asking to stay in my room for lunch, but he doesn't have a packed lunch to eat. I really don't understand, Karen. I'm so scared. And today he fell asleep in the middle of class—he never used to do that before—and had to be woken up."

Sarah chews the inside of her lip and can feel tears welling in her eyes.

"It sounds like there's something going on there, Sarah. Is there a number to call?"

She nods and blurts her answer into the phone.

"CPS."

"Then call them. Hang up right now and call them. Call me back if you need to, but call them _right now_."

Sarah hangs up and does not hesitate to dial the number for Child Protection Services.


	36. XXXVI

The phone call is brutal—Sarah knows that the person on the other end of the line deals with situations like these every day, and so probably has become slightly jaded, but can't they share _some_ of the absolute terror that she feels now?

"Are there any visible marks?"

"No… No I haven't seen any but I didn't really… I mean he's just been acting like something's _wrong_."

She's getting almost hysterical now, and her frantic words stumble over themselves as she tries to explain the situation with the same gravity that she feels.

Sarah does her best to explain the situation further, but eventually she is thanked and hung up on. As soon as the phone call is ended, she spins over to her computer and opens up an internet page. CPS will most likely schedule a home visit, and with a little more probing, Sarah discovers that the standard investigation timeframe is thirty days. If nothing is found within that time, the case will be dropped.

Sarah is torn—if there's something going on at Zach's home, she wants it to be discovered, but at the same time she doesn't want that; if they find nothing, then hopefully nothing is wrong.

Sarah goes home and that night there are no strange thumping noises in her walls. The next morning she goes and purchases a pocket calendar, circles the previous day, and numbers that with a red _1._

With every day that passes, Sarah checks another block of the calendar off. Soon, she finds herself scrawling the number thirty onto the page.

Nothing has happened—though Zach has started bringing a lunch, he still eats in her room—and Sarah doesn't expect to be notified if anything _did_ happen.

For a week he seems to be getting better and Sarah breathes a sigh of relief every day that he does not fall asleep or some in with horrible dark circles under his eyes.

"How are you, Zach?" she asks one day when he walks into her class a little late.

"Sorry Miss Williams. I left my house a little bit late and there was this bird in a tree and I got distracted… Are you going to send a slip home?"

"No, Zach. Just try not to be late again, okay?"

He nods and all but runs to his seat.

But that is the last day of the tenuous tranquility—the next day he comes in with a large bruise on his left arm.

That night, Sarah makes another call to CPS.


	37. XXXVII

Sarah marks down another thirty days on her calendar.

Zach starts to fall asleep more and more in class, and Sarah lets him; it's when he starts to become aggressive again that she has to do something.

"Zach, if you hit TJ again, you'll have to go and sit in the corner."

But she never threatens him with a phone call home, like she might other students. He seems to understand this, and doesn't test her boundaries too much.

For her, scolding the once-jubilant boy is starting to become routine. When he has to move his sticker into the red zone, the class occasionally sniggers, but soon they collectively grow weary of their teasing and leave him alone.

While the class observes the chrysalis that Sarah managed to find, Zach hangs back and Sarah gives directions not to touch the forming butterfly. She kneels down by his desk.

"How is your baby sister?"

He scrunches up his face as if he smells something rancid.

"She's fine."

"And how are you?"

His face tightens even more.

"I'm fine."

A shout of joy comes from the direction of the terrarium and Sarah takes Zach's hand in hers.

"I think the butterfly's coming out, come see."

He stands, and they both walk over to the glass cage. Sarah notices that he limps.

When they go to recess, after the butterfly has crawled out of its transparent confines, Sarah does not bother to call Child Protection Services again.

She stands with her back to the windows and the terrarium, ignoring the butterfly drying its wings and takes a deep breath, trying to steady her pounding heartbeat.

Sarah has time to think that's she's doing something wrong, that this is a _bad, bad_ idea and that she's a _bad, bad_ person, and what would happen if she's been reading the signs wrong, if nothing is wrong with Zach at all?

But the words are soon out of her mouth.

"I wish the goblins would come and take Zach away." Sarah slides her hands up over her eyes and mumbles the last two words that would complete the wish.

"_Right now._"

Nothing happens, and Sarah waits a few moments in that silence before she begins to slowly slide her hands off her face.

"Wishing people away again, Sarah?"


	38. XXXVIII

"That's… That's not…"

"Fair?" He asks, wispy hair caught in the slight breeze let in through the open window. Sarah swallows hard and shakes her head a little.

"That's not completely right. This is a little different."

He pulls out one of the chairs from behind a desk and reclines in it the best he can. It's a spectacularly silly image; the little plastic chairs are designed for six year olds, not almost ageless Goblin Kings. Sarah almost has the urge to laugh.

"How is this different?"

"I'm afraid." She says, not really answering his question. The breeze is refreshing for the blisteringly hot day, but Sarah finds herself shaking.

"Of what?" He stands and moves as if he'll place a hand on her shoulder, but stops halfway over to her, arm outstretched.

"_For_ this child." She corrects, and shudders again. He takes a step closer.

"Explain to me the situation, why you made the wish. If I deem it appropriate, then I will take the child." It sounds almost reasonable to Sarah, but since when has he had any hang-ups in granting her stupid wishes? Why is he going to pass judgment on the one that really _matters?_

"I think there's something going on at home—he'll come in injured, sometimes, he doesn't have a lunch and he looks about half dead. I went through the appropriate channels and… Nothing's happened. It's only gotten worse." Her throat seems to be almost swelling shut and her voice cracks towards the end. A sticky tear slides down her cheek and she swipes furiously at it.

"I don't want him to be hurt anymore. He used to be a really sweet kid but he's changed drastically—_something_ has to be wrong. He's got all of the signs we're told to look for and… and _nothing has been done_. You have to take him." She wipes at her eyes more until the skin beneath them is red. Jareth is quiet as he considers her plea, watching her scrub away the tears that fall.

"'Cause damn it, Jareth, if you don't—" She bows her head and puts a hand over her mouth to stifle the sob that escapes.

Almost immediately she is enveloped by the scent of rain and spice and lightning—his scent—and she takes in a quick breath.

"I'll take the child, Sarah. He will have a better home."

She leans into him embrace and clutches at his arms, unable to even say "thank you" properly through her mixture of relief and anxiety.

**A/N**  
>Look, soubi, it's Jareth! :D<p> 


	39. XXXIX

Zach trudges back into class after recess and Sarah tries not to wince. Jareth has not taken him yet—understandable, she allows, because he _was_ probably in the middle of the jungle gym at the time but… If not then, when?

He fidgets through the rest of the class, obviously trying not to fall asleep and Sarah does all she can to keep from fidgeting right alongside of him.

_What is Jareth playing at?_ She asks herself, silently fuming. _He's not going to do something stupid like burst appear in a shower of magic in the middle of class, is he?_

But that particular fear is not answered and the children file out the door at the end of the day, Zach still among their numbers.

She takes a deep breath, reminds herself to be patient and not break any speed laws to get home, and pulls out of the school's parking lot. She takes a route that she doesn't normally and sees the direction that Zach takes—Sarah winces. It isn't a good part of a town, and _bad_ doesn't particularly do it justice. Sarah wouldn't let a child, let alone a six year old, of hers wander down those streets alone.

But she makes it home without plowing over any pedestrians or getting pulled over, and as soon as her door is locked securely she switches her television on to a news channel.

There won't be any immediate news, she knows, but missing children are taken seriously and an Amber alert will be put out as soon as he doesn't get home, she hopes.

She passes the time by grading a few papers and paying attention to Gwen, who sorely needs it. At one point she looks up at her clock, realizes that it is ten thirty and she has yet to eat.

Sarah is in the middle of reheating leftover Chinese when her television once again captures her attention.

"In tonight's news, a young boy is assumed kidnapped. Zachary Tobias Miller—" Her stomach lurches; he shares a name with her Toby— "was walking home from school earlier today when…"

The police don't have a lead, and the news reporter ends the segment asking for information. Sarah knows that there won't be any leads because Jareth wouldn't be untidy enough to leave an eyewitness.

She turns off her television and is left to sit in the quiet dark.


	40. XL

For almost a week, Sarah receives no information about Zach from Jareth. No little goblin envoys, no mysterious, magical messages that she is certain is his style, and not even so much as a message on her voicemail. She's a little scared—maybe Zach really _did_ get kidnapped—but no, because Jareth _promised_ her.

And he wouldn't break a promise as important as this one… would he?

She shakes her head to clear her thoughts and settles down into her favorite chair with a steaming cup of tea and the newspaper. There's been no news about Zach, so she supposes that's a plus, but at the same time, there's been _no news about Zach_. If Jareth doesn't contact her soon she'll simply have to strong-arm her way into the labyrinth. Mind made up, she dumps the chilled tea down her drain, leaves the now-unfolded newspaper abandoned in her chair, and heads off to the comfort and confines of her room.

The little rustlings in her walls are back, louder than ever, and they keep her up for most of the night as she traces their paths through her ceiling and walls.

She wakes to a letter on her table in the morning, beautifully embossed and sealed with scarlet wax. It's almost a shame to open it, but she's too eager to read the contents to truly care about the exterior.

_Dearest Sarah,_

It starts out promising, at least—but then she chides herself with the reminder that _he has a wife_.

_I hope you are well; you will no doubt be relieved to know that young Zachary is safe and secure, and though he misses your tutelage and some of the other children, he is quite content. I have taken the liberty of telling him that you will be by to visit in six days, but if you wish I will rescind the offer._

Sarah runs a hand through her unbrushed hair, wincing as she snags on a tangle or two as she reads. She supposes that she'll have to write back, but has no idea as to how it will reach him. Maybe she'll just write and then leave it on the table; maybe the goblins will pick it up for her.

_I am also desirous of knowing if you have given any thought to my previous offer._

_Deepest regards,_

_Jareth_

With a squeak of surprise, Sarah almost drops the letter. Grabbing the nearest piece of paper (something torn from a notebook) and a pen of an atrocious hot pink color she scrambles to write a reply.

_Jareth,_

_Of course I want to see Zach! His sister's been taken out of their parents' custody due to neglect. Charges are being brought against them, though I don't know what they'll be. I'm fine, but I _am_ confused._

_On one of my last visits to the Underground, I was led to believe that you were married. If you were inquiring as to whether or not I'd reconsidered you proposal, I will have to answer with a no._

_S_

Biting her lip, she folds it up, stuffs it in an envelope and tosses it on her table.

**A/N**_**  
><strong>_Oh, this is so very Pride and Prejudice… Almost.


	41. XLI

She leaves the letter on the table for the rest of the day. By the time the sun has set, it is still there. Sarah busies herself by organizing the papers and lesson plans she needs for the week, and to spite her growing boredom and curiosity she organizes her pantry. It's almost agonizing; because her table is in her kitchen, and her pantry happens to only be a few feet away, she can't help but to cast surreptitious glances at it every few minutes.

By the time she's on the last shelf and has managed to spill a box of rice, she almost gives up. It's almost midnight, and if the goblins haven't come yet…

_They'll come_, she steels herself, finding the broom and sweeping the rice into a heat pile. She can't find her dustpan, though, and decides to leave it until morning.

But she has a hard time trying to get to sleep, as if the air were charged with electricity, so she tosses and turns for another half of an hour.

When she _does_ get to sleep, she dreams, but when she wakes, she can't remember them. The only indication that she did dream was the fact that her legs were twisted in her sheets. She must have shifted in her sleep more than she thought.

After staring at her ceiling for a good five minutes, trying to urge herself out of bed, she finally rolls ungracefully to the other side and into her slippers. Sarah goes about her daily morning ritual, ignoring the sight of her kitchen for as long as she can.

But finally she stumbles into the tiled, blindingly white room, snatches a bowl from the cupboard and sets it down on her table.

Right where the letter had been last night.

Trying to contain her victory dance, Sarah very calmly puts it back and all but skips out to her car.


	42. XLII

By the time that the bell rings, signaling the end of the day, Sarah is absolutely exhausted. She's also torn.

She wants to go back and check to see if Jareth has replied yet, but she feels like she needs to make a wish, too. She grabs her car keys and then is hit with a wave of dizziness.

_Okay, so I'm not going to be driving._ She half grunts, half sighs, and sits down in her chair, waiting for it to pass enough that she doesn't see double of everything. It takes a few minutes and it's worse than anything she's ever felt before.

As soon as her vision goes back to normal, she sits up and takes a breath.

"I wish—"

And is cut off by another stab of pain. Groaning, she clutches her head and leans forward so she is almost bent double.

"Okay, okay." She whimpers. "I'm _trying _to make the wish!"

It passes, and stays gone this time. She is able to complete the wish.

Sarah does not wind up in the labyrinth; instead she finds a familiar but half-forgotten view waiting for her when she opens her eyes. It's the old park she used to live a few blocks away from, before her father and mother had split up and moved. This park is smaller than the one she used to recite at, and swarming with children. She steps out from underneath the tree she's standing under and discovers that there's a discernable difference between the temperature in the shade and the temperature in the sun.

But the kids sound almost muted, like she has loose earplugs in her ears. So muted, in fact, that from the other side of the tree, she can hear a page turn.

"I wondered when you would be along, Sarah."

It's Jareth who is turning the pages of a little red book; Sarah is not too surprised to see him sprawled out underneath the tree the way he is, all careless youthful dignity.

"I would have been here sooner if you'd let me actually _make_ the wish." She tells him crossly. "You might be impatient but that doesn't give you any right to make me feel like my head's splitting open."

He sits up, leaning against the tree casually and quirks an eyebrow at her. "I don't know what you're talking about, but this is rather pressing. You see," he says, extending the book out to her, "I am prepared to offer you a way out of everything."

"What do you mean by that?" Sarah asks sharply, not liking where this conversation is going _at all_.

"If I never give you this book, then you will not wish your brother away to me. If you fail to do that, then none of this will happen. I am offering you," he says again, inclining his head, "a way out of this."

She gapes like a fish for a few undignified seconds.

"And if I refuse?"

"If you wish to decline this, then you must simply tell me which child here is your younger self."

She slides down and sits cross-legged next to him, pressing the back of her head against the tree. If she let him give her the book, if would lead to everything that's happened; fear and heartbreak and a tender moment or two, but… If she refused the book…

She'd never wish Toby away, she'd never go to the labyrinth, she'd never go back in time, she'd enver meet Jareth at all…

There's a few silent moments where she doesn't even know what her own answer will be, but then—

"Over there." She croaks, waving her hand at a little dark-haired girl in pigtails. "That's me."


	43. XLIII

"Cripes." She struggles to remain standing as she stumbles forward, throwing out her arms for balance. Sarah almost sprawls out on the sandy colored tiles, but manages to catch herself just in time.

"Sarah!" The little boy plows into her legs with a hug.

Zach looks much healthier; his skin has gone from wan and bruised to tanned and glowing and his eyes are no longer hooded but bright and glittering. And he's _smiling_, which is the best thing of all to see on his face. It's a reflection of how he used to be, at the beginning of the school year. Sarah's confident that she's made the right decision and the little thorn of doubt that had wiggle its way into her heart disappears.

"Zach!" She smiles down at him and returns the hug as best she can. "How have you been?"

"I'm good! Jareth's found me a tutor and says that if I do well enough he'll find somebody to teach me _magic_ which I'm not sure that I think that's a good idea so I said I wanted to wait and ask you and—"

He sucks in a deep breath, pants a little and breathes out.

"And now I want to ask you. What do you think?"

Sarah laughs a little and looks down at Zach, considering.

"Well, I'm sure it's a big responsibility, Zach. Do you want to learn magic?"

He nods so fast she's afraid he'll get whiplash.

"Then I think you should do it."

He breaks into a bigger grin and takes her hand, pulling her out through a side door.

"Then come on, Sarah, Jareth's in the back tutoring room. He says he wants to talk to you about it."

She lets him pull her along, allowing herself to share in his giddy joy, and they both stumble into what Zach calls the tutoring room. Jareth pours over what looks like a map and barely looks up when they enter.

"Jareth, Sarah's here."

His head snaps up and he smiles a little one-sided smile.

"She's agreed to the magic, I presume?"

Zach nods again.

"Wonderful. Sarah, if you do not mind, I would like to have a word with you alone. Zach, would you please continue your geography studies?"

Zach moves over to the table and arranges the maps while Jareth takes Sarah's arm and leads her back out of the room.

"I've got a bone to pick with you." She says lightly.

"And what would that be, Sarah?"

"You summoned me just a little while ago and you gave me the _worst_ headache I've ever had. Was there a particular reason for that?" Her words don't have an edge to them and she's trying very hard to keep her face neutral. Sarah's not that perturbed, actually, but it's amusing to watch the miniscule, controlled expressions flit over his face.

"Was that for the book?" She nods.

"Sarah, that was so long ago I hardly remember it. I believe that I was rather… irritated, however. I imagine that you were merely picking up on what I was feeling."

"Right. Well at any rate, I forgive you."

"I can now rest easy." He smiles and brushes a strand of hair away from her face.

"Now, what about this magic?"

"Ah. I would have liked to secure a parent's permission, but I believe that would be nigh impossible. I believe that you are the closest thing that he can now call mother, so your permission will do."

Sarah nods, but isn't sure that what he's said is right.

"When do you plan to start on those lessons?"

"In a few years, perhaps. He is rather young and I would like to make sure that he is able to control it before we truly start on anything."

She _hmms_ and licks her lips a little.

"And what is the point of discussing this so far away from Zach for?"

"Am I not simply allowed to want to be alone with you?"

Sarah can feel her face grow hot.

**A/N**  
>What is this 400 word limit you speak of?<p>

_Also_, sorry for the delay. I'm a sickly child. ):


	44. XLIV

"Where are mom and dad?" Toby asks, throwing down his backpack onto the kitchen floor. Sarah can hear something crack and wonders if she should ask if it was important.

"They're out for a bit. You're stuck with me for a few hours. Do you have any homework?"

He glances down at his bag but quickly shakes his head to the negative.

"Where are we going to go?"

"I was thinking that we should go check out that new ice cream parlor. It's a bit of a stretch, but dad and Karen won't be home for another three hours, I think." Sarah grabs her keys and follows Toby out the door. He's in the car, seatbelt buckled, and bouncing excitedly in the seat before she's even done locking up the house.

During the drive to the parlor, Toby blares his favorite music and chatters excitedly about what he's been doing in school. He's a funny kid—his humor is quick and slightly sarcastic and something that she can actually laugh at. He being some sort of comedian in the future is entirely plausible.

They're one of the few cars in the parking lot, which isn't unusual. Although it's a Friday night, it's still early. More people will probably show up with their families later in the evening.

"So, how's life been?" Sarah asks him, leaning back in the red and white striped booth. The plastic covering squeaks.

"Good! It's the last week of school so there's not much to do. Mom's a little mad though; she thinks there are mice or something in the walls. She thought she got rid of them a while ago but I guess they're back." He shrugs and takes the sundae handed to him.

"She's going to get traps sometime soon."

Sarah nods and pokes at her own frozen treat.

"I don't remember there being a mouse problem."

"Really?" He asks, shoving a particularly chocolate laden spoonful into his mouth. "Mom said that the last time it was this bad I was just a baby, so you'd have still been living there."

"What's it sound like?"

He takes another bite, shrugs, and then swallows.

"Mice? I dunno. Thumps and squeals and stuff in the walls? It gets kind of weird at night."

Sarah's spoon is halfway to her mouth when it stops. She cocks her head at him, smiling a little before she places it back down in her bowl.

"Has anything gone missing?"

"Yeah, now that you mention it. A couple of my favorite baseball cards just… _poofed!_"

Sarah laughs and ignores the look that Toby throws her.

"Why? What's so funny?"

"Nothing really. I just don't think those traps are going to work."

"Why?" He asks, ice cream forgotten.

"No particular reason. Finish your ice cream before it melts." She smiles widely and takes a bite of her own.


	45. XLV

"You need to tell your goblins to be more careful." Sarah says as she leans backwards into the sunlight that manages to peek between the tree branches. Beside her is a delicate tendril of rosemary and she picks it, inhaling the scent. Jareth takes it from her hands and tucks it behind her ear.

"Should I?"

"Karen's convinced there are mice in the walls, she's going to lay down traps."

"Hm."

She blinks up at the sun and rolls over so that she can face him.

"What are your goblins doing at Toby's house, though?" She tries to keep the faint suspicion she holds out of her voice.

"They remember him, and when they get excited, I have trouble containing them on occasion."

"On occasion?" She asks, grinning. "They like to steal my pens."

"On occasion." He agrees, inclining his head in a slight nod.

There's a loud bang from a few meters away and they both turn to look at a sheepish Zach. Something's exploded—nothing too large and he's not hurt, based on the way he's blushing furiously and stammering an apology.

"Shouldn't you be looking after your student?" she teases him lightly.

"Shouldn't _you_ be looking after your student, Sarah?"

She taps his arm and then points to Zach, who is currently trying to wrangle whatever it is that's in his arms.

"What is that, exactly?"

It's as big as a beach ball and round like one, but it's almost completely transparent. And it's smoking. It slips from Zach's grip and explodes on the ground again.

"It is a crystal; one of his first attempts, at any rate."

Zach conjures another one and it sparks on contact with his skin. He yelps, startled, and Sarah stands, running to retrieve it from his hands.

It drops between both of them and shatters, separate pieces dissolving into sparks.

"Is this dangerous?" Sarah asks, turning halfway to face Jareth and pin him with a glare.

"Not at all. It is all illusory."

Sarah nods and steps away from Zach as he conjures another crystal. It's a little more manageable this time and it doesn't smoke or sizzle in his hands. The boy looks up and grins at the two adults.

"I think I'm getting it!"

**A/N**  
>I am (mostly) back from the incoherently medicated dead! Huzzah!<p> 


	46. XLVI

Sarah and Jareth trail behind the boy balancing his latest (and best) crystal. Zach runs before them, jumping over flowers and dodging trees when he finds them in his way.

When she glances his way, Jareth's mouth is twisted in a way that makes it look like he's holding back words. Sarah draws a deep breath.

"So…"

His head swivels to face her and his eyes bore a hole into hers while she tries to collect her words.

"So where's your wife? I heard some things about her and I'd like to meet her—unless, of course, you keep her chained in the castle with no hope of escape." She tried to laugh.

"Keep her chained up? Hardly, Sarah. In fact, she flits in and out of my life so often it's rather exhausting."

"Hm." She steps over a flower that has dropped into the walkway from the garden. "That doesn't sound very…" She searches for a word and can't find one.

"It seems complicated." Sarah finally amends.

"It is, I assure you."

There's silence between them again and Sarah doesn't know how to fill it. Jareth isn't helping, either. It's awkward, and she can only imagine how they have to look walking together. They're close enough to obviously be together, but far enough apart so that it feels awkward. Sarah remembers watching kids in high school walk like this, but it was usually because they were at the cautious flirting stage of what might become a relationship.

In this case, though, the silence only seems to make it worse.

"I should probably be getting back home." She says slowly. "Thanks for letting me come here again."

At first, he seems to ignore her request as he keeps walking through the garden.

"Jareth!"

"I believe," he says, turning around suddenly, "that if I have the timeline right, you will be returning to my past again within the week."

"I will?"

"It will also be the last time you go back."


	47. XLVII

In the next three days, Sarah breaks a plastic spoon in her coffee canister, a hairbrush, her kitchen sink, and to her personal horror, a book. She jumps at shadows but is worried when there are none to jump at, and she stays up as late as possible. Though it's summer and there's not much to be done, she barely gets any work completed. She's waiting for the final summons, the last one's she'll ever get.

She's a little excited, mainly because it's always at least interesting, going back into his past, but then again…

They're the _last summons she'll ever get._

That is what Sarah doesn't like.

Of course, she tells herself that she knew they had to end eventually, and seven years _is_ a long time to be travelling back and forth, and if Jareth doesn't need her anymore, that's okay…

But she can't convince herself of that, no matter how many times she repeats those words. It's not okay. Maybe she can beg him to stay, but that wouldn't work either. She has a life here, a job, a family… and Gwen. Poor, jumpy Gwen.

The little cat still hisses at what Sarah would assume to be nothing if she didn't know any better, but as far as she can tell the goblins haven't done anything to her. The little cat simply doesn't like the intrusion into her territory.

Furious that she's been keeping herself contained in her apartment, Sarah goes for a run. When she returns an hour later, she's even more wound up than when she set out.

_This_, she decides, _is what isn't fair_.

He said within the week, and he has three more days, but it's three more days of wondering if she's being summoned or just getting a stomach virus (it was the virus), or of wondering what this last trip will mean.

Sarah tries to make herself positively excited, but manages only agitated paranoid.

With one day to spare and at eleven fifty-nine at night, Sarah glares at her clock. Her tea is cooling and her hair drips in rivulets down the back of her nightgown which is decidedly uncomfortable and probably pretty transparent by now.

With a strained effort to keep from breaking the cup, Sarah places it in the sink and rinses it with water. As she turns off the knob to stop the rush of scalding water, she doubles over in pain.

She's kicked the virus, so this time she knows it has to be her final summons.


	48. XLVIII

She's not in the garden, like she half expected to be. Instead, she stands beside Jareth in a forest, underneath the largest trees she's ever seen. It's quiet—even the birds have hushed—and sunlight dapples the ground through the leaves. The entire area smells like earth.

"Have I run the labyrinth yet?"

He shakes his head and takes one of her hands, tugging her gently along into the forest. He steps silently over the forest floor and compared to him, Sarah's probably the loudest thing in the entire area. She wonders why it's so silent.

"Not yet, but soon."

"How soon?"

He looks down at her, upswept eyebrows rising even more.

"From what you told me, I expect to see you again in a day or two. Perhaps three."

They continue walking, pushing aside ferns and passing through the warm shafts of sunlight until they come to a clearing of sorts. The trees here are saplings compared to the others around them—some probably are simply saplings, because they're just above Sarah's waist. Still, the taller trees bathe them in shadows.

"Where… What is this place?"

"A sanctuary."

A crystal comes to life in his gloved hand and transforms itself to a bouquet of lavender and ivy. She takes it from him but doesn't have to raise it to her nose to smell the fragrant flowers.

"What do we do now?"

"We wait to be recognized as one."


	49. XIL

Dirt and the skeletons of long-fallen leaves stick to Sarah's cheek and she wipes the muck off as she sits up. The sun no longer shows through the trees, but the entire forest is still silent. Little lights that remind her of fireflies spiral up from the forest floor.

"How long was I asleep?" She asks softly, standing completely this time and brushing dead leaves off of her nightdress.

"It took the sun three hours to set."

She shrugs but takes his somewhat cryptic answer. The little lights continue to spiral upwards, but as soon as they leave the canopy, she loses sight of them. Sarah cranes her neck and stumbles back in her attempts to follow them.

"What's going on?"

"We are in the process of being bonded. Do you agree to this?" He asks, pinning her with a questioning stare.

"I—well, of course."

He nods, and the lights intensify. Before long they're swirling around the couple so that to Sarah it almost seems like daylight's back. She holds her breath and tries to keep herself from following any single one.

Jareth reaches up and traces her jaw, bringing her attention back to him. He looks almost as if he's glowing, skin heightened to a shimmering gold, light cracking through his hair like lightning.

"Focus on me, Sarah."

She nods.

They stare into each other's eyes, bright blue meeting sea-glass green, neither one blinking while the little lights spin faster and faster around them.

As soon as they has started, they disappeared, and Sarah saw spots in the darkness the light left. Night sounds started up—little insects and night creatures in the background, but the sound of their breathing was still predominant.

"I have a favor to ask. Will you grant me another wish?"

He inclines his head, and the movement is only visible to Sarah because their skin seems to glow slightly.

"I don't want you to grant my wish—the second one. So… I wish you wouldn't grant any more of my wishes after my first one." She blinks. "_Aside_ from this one. Please."

"As you wish." He murmurs into her hair, and she grabs him in a tight, desperate embrace.

**A/N**  
>There was a bit of a delay for this one because I got distracted… working on another Labyrinth piece, so yay! It's going to be a multi-chaptered (though it also started off as a oneshot, it just… <em>grew<em>) piece with more traditional-length chapters. It's going to be called _Escapist_, so keep an eye out for it, please!

I'm not sure if I'm technically allowed to do this or not, but… One particular scene calls for a lot of one-time characters, and I was wondering if any of you wanted to sort of be included? If you do, send me a little bit about yourself either in a review or PM.

For example, I'd send that I have long blonde hair, I'm short, and when I get nervous I rub my forehead. Any little quirks like that should make you easy to spot for yourself. :)


	50. L

The ground doesn't shake, the sky isn't any bluer, and the world has hardly flipped upside down when Sarah returns home, but she feels different. There's a sort of buzzing under her skin, like an electric charge has been let loose within her system. She still glows a little, but wouldn't notice it if she hadn't already known she was.

It's difficult to go about everyday business because she's not sure what she's waiting for—or even _if_ she's waiting for anything at all. She has a nervous few days while she waits for something, anything to happen. Birds sing a little louder at her window and perhaps a little earlier in the morning than usual, but that's about it and can be explained by the streak of nice weather.

One absurdly early morning when the sun has yet to even rise, Sarah wakes to a loud cracking noise and a sudden burst of light.

"You have this thing about seeing me in my nightclothes, don't you?" She asks the sudden apparition, sitting up and trying to peer into the light. "What are you doing here anyway?"

The light is doused and she hears a light laugh from the other end of her room, where the light was.

"Sarah, I _was_ under the impression that you might want to come back with me."

Sarah nods.

"For a while, of course." She says, slipping her legs from underneath her covers. Her floor is cold on her feet.

"What exactly do you mean by 'a while,' Sarah?" Jareth places his hands on his hips and cocks his head to the side.

"Well, I can't exactly just abandon my life here, of course. My parents would worry—Toby would, too—and I can't just leave the school like that, either. Besides, I like teaching." Sarah hugs herself and watches Jareth prowl closer.

"Then what do you propose?" He strokes her face and she shudders, but smiles.

"Weekends, maybe evenings. During the summer there shouldn't be a problem, so that should be—ah!—fine." She swallows heavily and halfheartedly tries to ignore his lips on her neck. "I can't think when you do that; we need to talk about this!"

"How long do you plan on going between lives?"

"Hmm?"

"_Sarah_, how long do you plan on flitting in and out of lives?"

"I—I'll have to, for a while. Like I said, I can't just leave my family, but… Give me one more year at the school."

"Acceptable."

"That's all you have to say?" Sarah snorts. "I'm doing a pretty big thing here, I think."

"Very well. Sarah, precious, I admire your bravery in leaving your world behind to join me in my own—even if it is only halfway."

"Don't tease!"

"I am not."

"Oh. Well…" He grabs her hands and holds them in his own.

"Now, would you do me the honor of coming with me?"

"Ye—no!" She stumbles back and tears through her room, peeking under her dressers and bed.

"No?" He asks, incredulous.

"No! I can't just leave Gwen!" She explains, surfacing with her groggy cat. _Now_ I can go, unless I should pack clothes…."

"That is not necessary; anything you could want for can be provided at home."

"Fantastic." Sarah tells him with a brilliant grin. With her free hand she takes his own and gives it a little squeeze.

"And Jareth? Thank you."

**A/N**  
>And so it ends. Kind of. I have a teeny tiny epilogue to upload soon…<p>

So far, the following people are guaranteed a spot at the Revel:  
>wepluvzyou<br>Jade9  
>Mickey Caresen<br>AlisonMorrow  
>VampChick76<br>SpiritedDreaming  
>the-salt-monster<p> 


	51. Epilogue

_I'm still mad at you_, she mouths to him over the kitchen table when Karen isn't looking.

Three days ago she and Gwen had gone with the Goblin King—Sarah's husband, now—back to where he lived for something of a weekend. Yesterday, Sarah insisted that they go to her parents' house so that he could be introduced.

He stabs a green bean with his fork and quirks his glamoured brows together. Jareth takes care to look more human when he's in Sarah's world, but there is something about him—and probably her, now—that seems slightly _off_.

_We'll talk later_, he responds.

Robert quizzes Jareth about his life, his job, what he's like while Karen asks Sarah questions she'd rather not answer.

"When did you two meet? This is the young man you told me about earlier, isn't it? Do you two have… plans?"

"Oh—a while ago. It's not as if I keep track, you know." Sarah punctuates the statement with a smile, even though she knows when _she_ met _him_… But when _he_ met _her_ is a different story, and not one she relishes explaining. "Yes, and yes. _But_," Sarah says, hoping to head the excited woman off, "you'll have to allow those to present themselves."

Dinner continues in the same drawn-out fashion, and the second the last morsel of food has been cleared from everybody's plates, Karen whisks them away, dragging her husband with her into the kitchen.

"What is it, Sarah?" Jareth asks her, but instead of answering, she leads him outside onto the porch.

"You never told me." She rounds on him, poking him in the chest with an accusing finger. "Not _once_ did you say that I had nothing to worry about because _I_ was the person I was… jealous of!"

"Jealous, Sarah?"

"Yes!" The former runner all but shrieks. "Days—_weeks_—I don't even _know_, how long I spent worrying about something which was apparently nothing. _Why_ didn't you tell me?"

"I thought you understood."

"Obviously not!" She fumes.

"I could not just tell you anything about your future, just as you could not tell me anything about mine." He pauses for a minute, as if considering the conversation. "Sarah, if you thought that I had been united with somebody else, why did you answer the summons?"

"They're damn hard to ignore, that's why. And… When I got there, I guess I got it. I kind of thought that if I didn't go _then_ that I'd be banished from the labyrinth forever or something like that, so of _course_ I would go. It would have just been nice to have some sort of validation, okay?"

Karen calls from inside and Sarah steps over the threshold into the house.

"You coming? I guess we're done here."

Jareth halts her progress into the house by grabbing her wrist and squeezing it lightly.

"For what it's worth, precious, I am sorry."

Sarah smiles.

"Come on, I think Karen's made peach pie for dessert."

* * *

><p><em>On March 3, 1998, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Williams welcomed Octavia Kingston, born to Jareth and Sarah Kingston, sister to Zachary Kingston.<em>


End file.
